


Crux

by Legendaerie



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Poetry, Unrequited, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A childish coping mechanism and a dream of being greater than he really is; if two hundred different timelines had brought him here, surely Marco must be destined for something, right?</p><p>(a poetry warm up that got out of hand)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crux

 

 

 

Each time you rewrite history a new freckle appears on your cheeks

like you were careless with the quill and flicked your skin with ink.

At least, that's what you tell yourself when you look in the mirror

and wish you could hide your blemishes like you hide

your feelings. The myth gives you comfort, because if you can change

things so easily then you must be here for a reason; then there must

not be a better world than the one you live in.

 

It helps to give things meaning, otherwise you'd drown

in pessimism like stagnant water.  They say that your government is corrupt

and the military is a farce, that the Titans are punishment.  You don't believe

it for a moment - there is good left in this world, and hope, and a bright

future if only you work towards that goal.  So you enlist and lose yourself

to become Marco Bott of the 104th Trainee's Squad, standing in the sunlight beside

a selfish boy who shares your dream for very different reasons.

 

You wonder if things always hurt like this, if it only took

a smile seen from across the table to make your coffee taste sweeter.

He's a cynic and a braggart and not even talking to you but inside

your heart something uncoils like a sprouting seed, and reaches fragile

metaphorical hands to the sky in pleading. It's not the right time

or place - it can't be, but it's the one that you've been given

or the one that you've given yourself.

 

He talks to you about the things he hates, like the green-eyed

Shigashina boy and the long hours and the days he falls behind the others.

He talks to you about the things he loves, like pale skin and hair

as black and shiny as spilled ink.  On good days he listens too but

your own life is pretty boring and you'd much rather hear

him speak, learn about the brilliant mind that works alongside

an ordinary heart.

 

Nothing is easy or soft in wartime but being around him is

like falling back onto your pillows after a long day.

Your bed is close to his and on late nights you wish it was colder

so that you could share his blankets, his breath, his life

for as long as the night shields you from your cursed freckles

that remind you of a hundred different times you might have failed.

Yet, you doubt he's the missing piece.

 

The ways in which he captivates you aren't extraordinary;

you just like the way that he sweats and curses through his teeth and blows

off steam by getting into fistfights - at least, unlike you, he's honest

with himself about his flaws. But you want more than that

for him, from him; you want your name or your mouth

on his lips and his hands calm and open as they smooth

the rough edges off your body.

 

Your first battle isn't your last but it is for others in your squad

and the space around you seems hollow in the silence of their absence.

He seems to feel the same way, and you try to fill his empty

edges with your warm assurances, promising him the future he wants

because the only thing you can give him is your hope. And now you start to believe

in your own delusions and fear for the day not when you die 

but when you wake up years earlier.

 

When it comes, Death does not ride a pale horse but it bares

its teeth and crushes you between inhuman jaws - you feel something

pop in your chest and then you don't feel anything at all.

It's cold and hot and it's nothing at the same time as sentience

gutters in your mind like a dying candle. You're so, so tired - can you

just rest for a moment, close the eye you have left

and start again?

 

Scenes real and dreamed flash behind your eyes and you wonder

if you really are a time traveler; if you could have done something

wrong along the way.  You don't want to believe that your life just ends

like this, you've only just gotten started; but you're afraid that if you changed

history then it would mean that your reality, your love was wrong.

So you let yourself go. Surely, things will work out the way they need to.

Right?

 

There are exactly two hundred and forty six freckles on your skin;

two hundred and forty six theoretical timelines where you failed.

But you've done something, at least - he believes in the version

of himself that you always knew existed.  You never were the hero;

you're just Patroclus wearing someone else's armor.  There are

two hundred and forty six freckles on your skin and each one turns to ash

when they burn your body.

**Author's Note:**

> casually steals the exact number of freckles from this fic - http://archiveofourown.org/works/816359


End file.
